Paris 2024 Paralympic Games: Torch relay to begin in England, before heading to France

Le relais de la flamme va reprendre du service. AFP – ARIS MESSINIS

Less than a week before the start of the Paralympic Games, the flame will be lit on Saturday in England, where the movement was born in the post-war period, before spreading during an express trip through some fifty cities in France.

In total, twelve torches, including a main one, will shine for four days (August 25 to 28) across France before returning to Paris and the Olympic cauldron, housed in the heart of the Tuileries Gardens, which will once again welcome the public free of charge from August 29, the day after the opening ceremony, until the closing ceremony on September 8.

While France is hosting the Paralympic Games for the first time, the very first edition of the Games (or at least its genesis) dates back to 1948, when the German neurologist Ludwig Guttmann organized sporting events for veterans of the Second World War who had become paraplegic or confined to wheelchairs at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, northwest London.

Arriving in France via the Channel Tunnel

It is from this location that the flame will be lit during a ceremony on Saturday at midday, in the presence of Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, and Andrew Parsons, president of the International Paralympic Committee. She will join France the next day via the Channel Tunnel.

Ensemble, rallumons la flamme pour les jeux paralympiques 🔥

Montpellier vous donne rendez-vous le dimanche 25 août de 14h à 21h pour vivre une journée historique à l’occasion du passage de la flamme paralympiques à Montpellier 😍 pic.twitter.com/GqwD5M8yGq

— Ville de Montpellier (@montpellier_) August 19, 2024

Twenty-four British torchbearers, launched into the tunnel, will join twenty-four French torchbearers halfway through to pass the baton to Calais. “We know from experience that Paralympic sport mobilizes fewer people, but I think we will be able to ride the wave of the Olympic craze […] The Olympics were a huge success and people are a little disappointed that it's over, maybe this is the opportunity to immerse ourselves in that special atmosphere again", hopes Pascal Pestre, the city's first deputy mayor, who points out that the Olympic flame also passed through Calais in July.

A "flame festival", reproduced in the other stopover towns, will be organized with a limit of 3,000 people for security reasons, indicated the Pas-de-Calais prefecture.

Twelve days, twelve flames

The other eleven flames (symbolizing the eleven days of competition after the opening ceremony) will be lit simultaneously, at the start of Strasbourg, Montpellier or even Lourdes and Lorient before converging on Paris via other stopover towns.

Lyon did not host the passage of the Olympic flame due to the high cost of the operation. Some departments had then considered the cost of 180,000 euros prohibitive. For the Paralympics, it will be. On August 26, 24 torchbearers will carry it through the streets of the city before the lighting of the cauldron at the end of the day.

“It is part of the city's policy to promote and develop Paralympic sport, and to give it visibility. It was a good opportunity", explains the town hall.

Nos premiers athlètes paralympiques arrivent au village 🏓 pic.twitter.com/F4uXrf3P5V

— Equipe France (@EquipeFRA) August 21, 2024

In total, according to the organizing committee, around fifty cities will be crossed by these relays, with more than 1,000 porters and six collective relays (in Antibes, Chambly, Vichy, Fontainebleau, Bobigny and Paris) aimed at honoring people working in the world of para-sport such as volunteers, or caregivers.

A thirteenth flame will be lit on Sunday, on the occasion of the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris and will then be presented on the stage of the "Rock en Seine" festival, at the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud, to the east of the capital. The main flame, coming from Stoke Mandeville, will pass through Calais, Arras, Amiens, Louviers and Chambly before arriving in Ile-de-France.